Auto Branch Protect

Auto branch protect is a simple web service that listens for organization events to know when a repository has been created. When the repository is created this web service automates the protection of the main branch. It also notifies you with an @mention in an issue within the repository that outlines the protections that were added.

Usage

• Install the following:
  • Python 2
    • pip install -r requirements.txt
  • Flask
  • ngrok
• Set GH_TOKEN as an environment variable with a value that corresponds to a GitHub Token (ie. export GH_TOKEN=208923487234780287128091)
• Set the user value in app.py
• Start the local web service via flask run --host=0.0.0.0 &

• Start the forwarding service via ./ngrok http 5000 &
• Note the forwarding address (ie. https://cfe6d829.ngrok.io in the output of the ngrok application)

• Set up a WebHook in the desired GitHub organization example
  • Note that the Payload URL should match the forwarding address from ngrok
  • Select the individual events radio button and check repositories
  • Content type should be application/json
  • Save the Webhook
• Create a repository
• See that branch protection and an issue was created for the repo!

Related Documentation

• GitHub APIv3
• Web Hooks
• API Status
• Flask Docs
• ngrok

Dependencies and Attribution

• Python
• Flask
• ngrok

Bugs and improvements

• Payloads are capped at 25 MB. If your event generates a larger payload, a webhook will not be fired. This may happen, for example, on a create event if many branches or tags are pushed at once. We suggest monitoring your payload size to ensure delivery. See webhooks docs
• There is a 1 second Delay built in to the code which is NOT ideal. It seems the code is checking for the main branch before it is finished creating.
• This could be done with AWS Lambda and an API Gateway.